Every time No Shave November rolls around, I’ve already either had specific facial hair for an acting role or simply been bearded/mustachioed for my own interests. When I sported my long beard a couple of years ago, I was frequently asked how long it took me to grow it to that length, and I had no clue. My beard-growing is often a common joking point with folks who know me, and the topic of “time vs length” is often the core subject, so since I was able to finally take part in the annual tradition of hair-growing this year, I did… for reasons of pure curiosity.

If you follow me on Instagram, you would have been privy to a daily shot of my beard’s progression. I shaved clean on November 1 and didn’t trim it at all until today, making the above image a sincere view of 30 days of beard-growth. I’m kinda glad I took a break from my site for most of November, too, because looking at my Instagram feed embedded on the right column over there makes me seem like a narcissistic insane person, and I’d rather you find that out the natural way 🙂 .

Just before I shaved my beard, I took a measurement of how long the hair had grown in 30 days. At the deepest point, on the sides of my chin, the hair was 1.5 cm. long. Directly under my chin, it was about 1.3 cm.. So, to answer the long-time question of how long my bushiest beard takes to grow out, I took a measurement of my middle-finger (10 cm.), since at its longest point, my beard was about that finger’s length underneath my chin. A bit of mathematics reveals that my longest beard took roughly 230 days to grow, or a little over 7.5 months. Kinda interesting to actually have my own beard-growing data, I think.

So, yes, I’m back to smooth-skinned for the new few hours until the stubble peeks out, but other than a bit of semi-useless trivia, what was the point of all of this? Well, No Shave November aims to direct attention towards cancer research support — the idea being that we grow out our hair in honor of those lose theirs under chemotherapy. I didn’t mention this, in fear that I may get committed to a sum that I do not have at my disposal, but I decided to donate a dollar for every Like/Heart/Upvote I received on my Instagram posts this month, which has accumulated to a total of $140 that the American Cancer Society will be getting from me in a few moments. If you’d like to be cool, go ahead and match my donation… you can even let us know about it in the comments below.